The Minnesota Population Center (MPC) was established in 2000 as a University-wide interdisciplinary cooperative for demographic research. The Center had three main goals: to foster connections among population researchers across disciplines, to develop large-scale collaborative research projects, and to provide technical and administrative support for those projects once they were funded. Just five years later, MPC has achieved these goals. The Center now serves a diverse group of 59 members from 10 University of Minnesota colleges and 19 departments, and has developed multiple large-scale collaborative research projects. MPC's signature activity is the development and support of large-scale population data infrastructure. During the past five years, MPC released over 322 million new records of clean, well-documented, and freely accessible microdata, multiplying the world total of public-use microdata at least three-fold. This work is directly relevant to the central mission of the NIH as the steward of medical and behavioral research for the nation. Investigations based on MPC-produced data are advancing fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of human health and population dynamics. This basic infrastructure is critical for health-related research on population growth and movement, fertility, mortality, health, and disability. MPC research infrastructure also supports an exciting array of substantive population research initiatives. During the past five years, the University has hired 11 new population researchers, most of whom are junior faculty. This has stimulated a ferment of research activity around diverse but interrelated themes. MPC clusters of research excellence include migration;life course and family transitions;work, gender, and family policy;education;health and well-being;and population and environment. Within and between clusters, MPC is taking active steps to foster interdisciplinary, cross-collegiate, and cross-institutional research collaborations. MPC researchers have produced over 1,000 publications in the past five years on these and other population-related topics. Measured by number and size of research grants, number and quality of publications, and impact on population research infrastructure, MPC has become one of the most influential population research centers in the nation, these successes could not have occurred without R24 funding. MPC now seeks new funding that will allow us to build on this momentum. There are extraordinary opportunities for synergy at the intersection of health research and the social sciences, and MPC is well positioned to cultivate them.